This invention relates to a crusher of the type which can be used for crushing various material, such as rock. Crushers typically employ at least two jaws which define a crushing cavity for receiving the material to be crushed. The jaws are moved toward and away from each other to vary the cavity dimensions to apply compressive loads to the material in the cavity to crush such material. The jaws can be moved toward each other by reciprocating one of the jaws as shown, for example, in Lipsey U.S. Pat. No. 203,054 or Low U.S. Pat. No. 350,494. The jaws can be opened and closed utilizing various forms of rotary motion as shown, for example, by Hack U.S. Pat. No. 2,607,539 and various kinds of cone crushers which employ cone-shaped rotary jaws. Also, the opening and closing motion of the jaws can be obtained by vibratory motion as shown, for example, in Picone U.S. Pat. No. 2,866,605.
Crushers of this type must often be quite large in relation to the volume of material that can be crushed. The increase in mass provides a corresponding increase in the cost of the crusher and creates inertia problems to the extent that relatively heavy components must be driven or reciprocated during the crushing process. In addition, crushers of the type described above do not have an accurately established upper limit on crushed particle size.